Aristotle (384–322 B.C.) rests his hand reflectively on a bust of Homer, the blind epic poet of the Iliad and the Odyssey. A medallion representing Alexander the Great, whom Aristotle tutored, hangs from the heavy gold chain. The philosopher contemplates material rewards as opposed to spiritual values, with the play of light and shadow on his features suggesting the motions of his mind. Painted for the great Sicilian collector Antonio Ruffo, the picture also refers to Aristotle's comparison of touch and sight as a means of acquiring knowledge. For more information about this painting, visit metmuseum.org.

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#5181: Aristotle with a Bust of Homer, Part 1

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#126: The Director's Tour, Second Floor: Aristotle with a Bust of Homer

This picture was painted in 1653 for the Sicilian nobleman Don Antonio Ruffo (1610/11–1678) and sent from Amsterdam to his palace in Messina during the summer of 1654. Ruffo was an avid collector; at his death he had 364 paintings, including a work by Van Dyck, Saint Rosalie Interceding for the Plague-stricken of Palermo, now also in the MMA (71.41). Though he went out of his way to collect works by famous masters, Ruffo rarely left Messina. He ordered this work through an agent, Giacomo di Battista, who did business with Cornelis Gijsbrechtsz, a wealthy Amsterdam merchant. Shortly after its delivery, the picture was recorded in Ruffo's inventory (1657) as a half-length figure of a philosopher, possibly Aristotle or Albertus Magnus. Based on this description, Giltaij (1999) concludes that Ruffo did not have a particular subject in mind when he made the commission, but probably asked for a half-length figure of a certain size. The dimensions given in the inventory are 8 x 6 palmi, equivalent to about 178 x 134 cm. (one palmo romano was about 22.34 cm.) and considerably larger than the current dimensions of the painting. Kirby (1992) explains, however, that the dimensions in palmi used in the Ruffo inventories were inexact measurements meant only as a guide. X-radiography confirms that the painting is close to, if not exactly, its original size.

In 1660, Ruffo commissioned a pendant for the Aristotle from the Bolognese artist Guercino (1591–1666), providing him with the desired dimensions and a sketch of the Rembrandt painting. In a letter to Ruffo of October 6, 1660, Guercino notes that "to accompany Rembrandt's which I judge to represent a Physiognomist, I thought it most fitting to make a Cosmographer . . . " Guercino's painting is now lost, but is known from a drawing in the Princeton University Art Museum.

Ruffo also ordered companion paintings from Rembrandt. They are the Alexander the Great of 1661 (now lost) and the fragmentary Homer (Mauritshuis, The Hague), dated 1663. Both are mentioned in an invoice dated July 30, 1661. In a letter of November 1, 1662, Ruffo addressed a letter to the Dutch consul in Messina, expressing dissatisfaction with the painting of Alexander and noting that he paid more for it than for the Aristotle; that the subject was in fact Aristotle had probably been clarified for Ruffo once he commissioned the other works from Rembrandt.

Until 1917, when Hoogewerff connected the newly published Ruffo documents with this painting, the subject had been variously identified as Ariosto, Tasso, Virgil, an imaginary man of letters, philospoher, or savant, or an actual poet or scholar of Rembrandt's time, such as Pieter Cornelisz Hooft.

Julius Held's analysis of the subject in an article of 1969 is still widely upheld. According to Held, Aristotle compares "two sets of values": on the one hand, everything that he admired in Homer—gravity, humility, "unequalled diction and thought"—and, on the other, wealth and worldly honor as embodied by the gold chain and medallion bearing an image of Aristotle's royal pupil, Alexander the Great.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Rembrandt/Not Rembrandt in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," October 10, 1995–January 7, 1996, no. 11.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Age of Rembrandt: Dutch Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," September 18, 2007–January 6, 2008, no catalogue.

MAY NOT BE LENT.

References

Cornelis Gysbert van Goor. Letter to Giacomo di Battista. June 19, 1654 [published in Ref. Ruffo 1916, and in Ref. Ricci 1918 with corrections], states that he has consigned a crate containing this picture to the captain of the vessel Bartholomeus, sailing for Naples, and notes that 500 florins are due for the painting, plus additional costs.

Inventory of Don Antonio Ruffo, principe della Scaletta. September 1, 1654 [published in Ruffo 1919], lists it as a half-length figure of a philosopher by Rembrandt, noting that it seems to depict either Aristotle ot Albertus Magnus.

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri). Letters to Don Antonio Ruffo. June 13–October 6/7, 1660 [published in Ref. Ruffo 1916], praises it and accepts a commission to paint a pendant in his own early style; acknowledges receipt of a sketch of this work; believes it represents a philosopher, and proposes a cosmographer as the pendant.

Mattia Preti (Il Cavalier Calabrese). Letter to Don Antonio Ruffo. September 18, 1661 [published in Ref. Ricci 1918], states that he is painting for Ruffo a Dionysius of Syracuse, a half-length figure with a turban draped about its head "come l'altri due [like the other two]", probably referring to this work, having mistaken the cap for a turban.

A Descriptive Catalogue of a Collection of Pictures. London, 1824, pp. 36–37, no. 116, as "Portrait of Cornelius van Hooft".

John Smith. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French Painters. Vol. 7, London, 1836, p. 110, no. 302, as "Vander Hoof," in the collection of Sir Abraham Hume.

G[ustav]. F[riedrich]. Waagen. Works of Art and Artists in England. London, 1838, vol. 2, p. 205, notes that although it is called a portrait of Van Hooft, it is dated 1653, and the historian died in 1647.

J. L. A. A. M. van Rijckevorsel. Rembrandt en de Traditie. Rotterdam, 1932, p. 15, fig. 12, states that the bust of Homer also served as the model for the head behind Pilate in "Pilate Washing His Hands" (MMA 14.40.610).

W. R. Valentiner. Rembrandt and Spinoza: A Study of the Spiritual Conflicts in Seventeenth-Century Holland. London, 1957, pp. 66–68, fig. 10, suggests that the three portraits commissioned by Ruffo would have been hung together—with the Aristotle on the left, the Alexander in the middle, and the Homer on the right—and that Ruffo himself may have suggested the inclusion of Homer's bust and Alexander on the medal, with the formation of an ensemble in mind.

Otto Benesch. Rembrandt. [New York], 1957, pp. 91–93, 96.

F[ritz]. Saxl. Lectures. London, 1957, vol. 1, pp. 309–10, pl. 216, commenting on Rembrandt's choice of subject matter for the Ruffo commission, notes that Aristotle's "Poetics" had recently been rediscovered and that Aristotle was held in high esteem in Holland; states that in this context the juxtaposition of Aristotle and Homer seems to conflate knowledge and poetry.

Kenneth Clark. Rembrandt and the Italian Renaissance. London, 1966, p. 78, fig. 71, believes the bust of Homer had particular significance for Rembrandt, who "turned again and again to the theme of blindness".

Maryan W. Ainsworth et al. Art and Autoradiography: Insights into the Genesis of Paintings by Rembrandt, Van Dyck, and Vermeer. New York, 1982, pp. 51–52, 98–99 nn. 43–46, p. 103, pls. 31–34 (overall, x-ray radiograph, and autoradiographs) and colorpls. E, F (photomicrographs of paint cross sections), state that technical analysis reveals that although the composition was established from the outset, in the process of painting Rembrandt altered the costume—particularly the shoulders and sleeves—the position of the Alexander medal, and the books in the background.

Olivia Gazzam Morrish. A History of the Society of the Four Arts, Palm Beach, Florida: A Narrative of Significant Events from 1936 to 1983. [Palm Beach?], n.d., unpaginated, ill. (gallery installation photograph).

Christopher Brown and Ashok Roy. "Rembrandt's 'Alexander the Great'." Burlington Magazine 134 (May 1992), pp. 286, 288, 291, 293, 296–97, fig. 10 (paint cross-section), argue that the Glasgow painting, not the Aristotle, was the first work made for Ruffo by Rembrandt.

Jo Kirby. "A Note on the Seventeenth-Century 'palmo' in the Context of Don Antonio Ruffo's Collection." Burlington Magazine 134 (May 1992), p. 298, argues that the measurements of paintings given in Ruffo documents are not exact but were meant to serve only as guides, and that attempts to calculate the original dimensions of this work should therefore not be taken too seriously.

David Freedberg. "The Bosom of History." New Republic (December 6, 1999), p. 50, states that Schama [see Ref. 1999] "pushes the available evidence much too far in his efforts" to reidentify Aristotle as Apelles.

Walter Liedtke et al. Vermeer and the Delft School. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2001, pp. 381, 388, 396, 438 n. 9, notes that Rembrandt "may have had the 'paragone' of painting and sculpture in mind when he compared . . . the senses of touch and sight" in this work.